The Hunter and the Priest
by Imadra Blue
Summary: A priest has paid D to protect him from the vampire that has destroyed his abbey. The priest's true nature causes D to reflect on his own. Pre-slash.


**Characters:** D (with pre-slash involving an original male character)  
**Disclaimer:** _Vampire Hunter D_ and all related franchises belong to Hideyuki Kikuchi. This story is for entertainment purposes and not for profit.  
**Written For:** Yuletide Madness, though it wound up long enough that it made it into the main Yuletide 2009 collection on AO3. The recipient is Erin C., who had a wonderful prompt for D suffering from UST in close quarters with someone.  
**Notes:** Mainly inspired by the anime films. Concrit is always appreciated on any of my fics.

_~~D~~_

D did not speak to the priest as he locked the windows. He paused only to peer outside. Though the sun had only just set, darkness entirely cloaked the near-empty abbey. The abbey's broken walls jutted into the starlit skyline like the teeth of a predator, and the waning moon looked distant and cold. All the abbey's crosses had melted--all but one. A small crucifix made of gold lay in the hands of the abbey's only surviving resident, the priest who had hired D only that morning. A dhampir priest.

The priest gave D no name, but it did not matter. D did not need names--he never did. The priest paid D less than his usual protection fee, but D accepted the job for one reason: curiosity.

The priest sat by one of the locked windows, clutching the golden crucifix. Like most dhampirs, he was beautiful. His pitch black hair stood in contrast to his snow white skin, and his eyes were an alluring cat green. Anyone who saw him would recognize him for what he was. His priest's robes and demure bearing did not offer him any modesty or purity. They only offered him restraint--a restraint that D understood all too well.

"You know the Marquis destroyed all this for you, don't you?" D asked, pacing around the room.

The priest glanced at him with wide eyes. He was probably only as old as he looked, far younger than D, who had lost track of his age after the second century. "I know. Of course I know. He's my father."

D nodded. He had suspected as much. Why else would a Noble go through such lengths to capture a priest, of all creatures?

"Did your father ever come for you?" the priest asked after a moment.

D did not reply. He would not speak of his father, especially not to this dhampir boy in his clerical clothing. Instead, he circled around him, studying the soft lines of the youth's face, his slender hands, the curve of his body beneath his robes. "Does it help?"

The priest frowned. "Does what help?"

"The robes. The crucifix. Do they change who you are?"

The priest glanced down at the crucifix in his hands. His palms were calloused from years of handling crucifixes. D wondered when the boy had stopped blistering every time he touched a crucifix. After a long moment, the priest finally spoke. "Does killing them change who you are?"

D's lips quirked. "I choose to kill them. You choose to pray for them. I wonder which of us is more effective."

"You mock my faith?"

"No. I genuinely wonder."

Thousands of bat wings fluttered outside, and D heard the cry of wolves. The Marquis would arrive soon, no doubt eager to claim his son. D wondered what the Marquis wished of him, if he desired to turn his son into his heir, or into something best not contemplated. D turned to watch the priest pray. The candlelight flickered over his creamy skin. Though the room only housed one chair and two dhampirs, it grew small and claustrophobic. The slide of black hair across a graceful neck bore a heady promise of broken vows.

Something that might have been kinship sparked desire in D. His fingers longed to stroke the other dhampir's skin, to discover how soft untouched flesh might be, to rob the celibate priest of his virtue and leave him debauched against the stone wall, flushed with pleasure. D felt the desire particularly keenly with this boy who reminded him of himself, but he turned it into power and loosened his blade in its sheath. For once, Left Hand kept silent. D was grateful for that. Though D had taken no vow of celibacy, as the priest had, so long as the desire for blood mingled with his desire for flesh, he would not partake of the latter.

The sound of footsteps echoed in the stone hallway outside, and D took a breath. The promise of battle offered him relief. He could spill the blood, watch it trickle across the stones and pool in a corner, but he would never taste it. But spilling it seemed enough--so long as it was Noble blood he spilled.

"You're going to kill him, aren't you?" the priest asked, closing his eyes. His face bore the signs of both relief and sorrow.

"That is what you paid me to do."

The priest glanced up at him. "And you will leave then, when he is dead?"

"So eager to be rid of me?"

"Quite the opposite, which is why you should leave soon." The priest's words almost undid D's resolve, but he gripped his blade and reminded himself of the only indulgence he was allowed--the destruction of his father's brethren. He steeled himself, freezing the sparks of desire in his abdomen in place.

"If it is that, then this room is definitely too small for the both of us. I will leave and find your father."

The priest nodded. "Your payment." He tugged a bag of money from his robes and held it out.

D took it, allowing himself to stroke the priest's hand. A small indulgence, but small indulgences were what allowed him to resist the unforgivable temptations that he inherited from his father. The priest's hand felt soft, but for his crucifix-made calluses--calluses much different from D's sword-made ones. The priest's hand did not know how to curl around the hilt of a blade. It did not know of bloodstains or smart-mouthed symbiotes. It was the hand of a human, not a dhampir.

"Perhaps I should have entered your trade," D remarked. Somehow, this dhampir boy had found a way to live as a human. Somehow, he had shrugged off his vampire heritage. Was this the power of faith? Or was it merely that this boy possessed a resolve he did not?

"We should all follow the path that best suits us." The priest glanced at D's blade, and his eyes grew flinty and feline. A familiar hunger passed across his face. Perhaps the priest had not fully conquered his vampiric heritage after all. "May God light your path."

"And may I never have to hunt you down." D turned on his heel and headed to the door. He slid his blade free and braced himself for battle with the Marquis. "Lock the door behind me."

As the door shut fast, the priest began to pray. D wondered if he prayed for his father, for D, or for himself. D did not believe there was anyone to answer those prayers.

And that was why he chose the path of hunter, not priest.

_End._


End file.
